Mixed Media

Performance Anxiety

On Oct. 4, hundreds of people flooded downtown Toronto for the
city’s annual all-night arts festival, Nuit Blanche. The
ones wearing these Day-Glo helmets and marking people with
invisible ink were part of “Halflife,” an interactive
art performance exploring themes of fear and connection, by Buffalo
artist Shasti O’Leary Soudant (MFA ’11).
In one of the most buzzed-about performances of the evening,
Soudant’s volunteer army of “carriers” tested the
public for the so-called Halflife virus. At midnight, the
“infected” gathered for a group
“quarantine” and “cure”—and the
chance to take some unusual selfies.